Ketchikan, Alaska - Sixty years ago this week World War II was
about to come a sudden end, but like most other Americans, Ketchikan
residents were preparing for many more months of sacrifice.

Although Germany had surrendered
in early May and the Japanese were suffering horrific losses
in the Pacific, stories in both the Ketchikan Chronicle and the
Alaska Fishing News - the forerunner of the Ketchikan Daily News
- were focusing on the expected invasion of the Japanese mainland.

"500,000 American casualties expected" trumpeted a
headline in the Chronicle.

"Campaign said likely
to last a year," echoed one in the Fishing News.

Although many of the able bodied
young men of the community had already joined the service, many
had been given food production deferments because they were involved
in the fishing industry. In late 1944, it had been announced
that many of those deferments would be cancelled. By the summer
of 1945, a great many more Ketchikan residents were either in
training for the war or had just recently reached the battlefield

Amongst the new arrivals 1st
Lt. Richard Brinck and the crew of the "City of Ketchikan."
The B-29 bomber had just been assigned to the 39th Bomber Group
at North Field in Guam in July and had flown three combat missions.
As commander of the plane, Brinck named it after his hometown.

Another Ketchikan airman, Rodger
Elliot returned home on August 3 with a 70 day furlough. Elliot,
who would return to his job as a pilot for Ellis Airlines after
the war, had been a prisoner of war in Germany.

"No youth from Ketchikan
has captured the affection and the imagination of the citizens
more than Rodger, and when new was received about his being missing
in action in Italy deep sorrow and regret was generally expressed,"
The Alaska Fishing News had reported in March of 1944. "Moreover,
on his last trip he had fulfilled his number of bombing missions
to be entitled a furlough home."

The Fishing News reported that
Elliot's wife, Pauline, had received a letter from one of Elliot's
former crewmen, engineer-gunner Sgt. Harold Warner of Ohio, who
gave her the circumstances of Elliot's downing.

"Your husband had a new
crew. I tried to get on the flight but they wouldn't let me go,"
Warner wrote. "They went out on a target just south of Rome.
He got a direct hit on his nose wheel well and the hydraulic
fluid caught fire. The tactical bombardment command reported
that they saw six chutes on the ground so that means that they
all got out and probably are prisoners. Your husband was a grand
fellow and was liked by the whole outfit and I was proud to be
a member of his crew. I am enclosing a picture of our ship, "The
Terrible Texan." She was a swell ship and swell guy flew
her."

Elliot was imprisoned at Stalag
Luft One camp in Barth, Germany along with more than 9,000 other
POWs, primarily aviators like himself, according to the "Prisoners
of War at Stalag Luft 1" website on the internet. The camp
was liberated by the Russians when the war in Europe ended in
May of 1945. But the prisoners return home was put into question
when a repatriation dispute arose between the US and the USSR.

Apparently, some liberated
Russian POWs were refusing to be repatriated to Russia, according
to POW camp historian and former pilot Raymond Darling. Russia
was also concerned that another war might break out with large
American and Russian armies facing each other in Germany and
was not interested in immediately releasing the American prisoner.

In an article on the Luft 1
website, Darling reported that the 8th Air Force took matters
into its own hands with a lightning evacuation called "Operation
Revival."

"The Russians don't seem
to want to cooperate in releasing our American airmen POW's so
we're going in and getting them," Darling said he was told
during a pre-evacuation briefing. " If the Russian's don't
like what we're doing. Then it's just - Tough S."

In three days, more than 200
bombers of the 8th Air Force, evacuated more than 9,000 prisoners
from the camp. Three months later, Elliot returned home, to do
a little fishing and to greet the infant daughter who was born
after he left for Europe,

Reports of other Ketchikan
participants in the war were in the Chronicle in early August.
Private Harry Newell was in the air corps in Italy, Technical
Sergeant Clifford Philips had received the bronze star and was
in Czechoslovakia , Second Lt. Dick Traversy had been wounded
in Italy but was recovering, Staff Sergeant Jimmy Tatsuda was
reported on his way back to the US after receiving the Purple
Heart in Europe.

Locally, Alaska Statehood was
a big issue, with federal officials - most notably Harold Ickes,
Franklin Roosevelt's longtime Secretary of the Interior - making
statements in support of Alaska becoming the 49th state.

Although the war effort curtailed
much domestic travel, it didn't stop of group of Congressmen
from taking an Alaska tour in the summer of 1945. The Congressmen
were surveying military installations in the state, but also
were gauging whether or not the sparsely populated state was
ready for statehood and self-sufficiency. The Fishing News reported
that the Congressmen were clearly taken with Alaska's scenery
but seemed more impressed that there was little of the commodity
rationing that was taking place in the Lower 48.

"I guess I'd better buy
a pair of shoes before I leave Ketchikan," Rep. Jed Johnson
of Oklahoma, said. "I've been needing a new pair for months."

Democrat John Rooney of New
York was surprised by the selection of cigarettes.

"They haven't had popular
brand cigarettes in Washington for almost three months,"
he told the Fishing News. "It will certainly feel wonderful
to smoke again."

The Congressmen held a public
hearing in the city council chambers with also included territorial
Gov. Ernest Gruening. Ketchikan's Senator in the territorial
legislature, Norman "Doc" Walker sparred verbally with
both Gruening and Rooney over Alaska's ability to support itself.
According to the Fishing News, Walker contended that Alaska's
fishing and mining industries could generate significant revenues
to support state government but that territorial and federal
officials conspired to keep industry taxes too low.

During the Congressional visit,
the Chronicle conducted a poll of local residents to determine
whether or not local residents favored statehood.

"Of 175 persons queried,
100 favor statehood," the Chronicle reported under a headline
reading "Statehood Favored If It Will Keep Wealth In Alaska."
"31 oppose it and 44 are undecided."

While the Fishing News did
not directly address its competitor's "poll," it used
an editorial to dismiss recent "minimal efforts" to
gauge public interest in statehood and noted that the opinion
of a population of more than 5,000 could scarcely be judged the
thoughts of a "couple of hundred" residents.

A few days later - at a public
hearing in San Francisco - Rooney and the other Congressmen declared
that Alaska was not yet ready for statehood.

Other local news was also in
the headlines, including the widening and paving of Stedman Street
from Ketchikan Creek to the Whitney Fidalgo Cannery. The city
council set aside approximately $60,000 to the project.

In early August, it was also
declared safe to swim in Ward Lake again. The lake had been closed
to swimming for several months because of outfall from sewers
at the former Civilian Conservation Camp nearby which was being
used to house Natives relocated from the Aleutian Islands earlier
in the war.

The Fishing News also reported
that Nels Nelson on the Thelma had unloaded the largest troll
Coho salmon trip of the season with more than 14,600 pounds of
fish caught over a 10-day period. That amount of Coho was worth
$2,200, according to the Fishing News.

But the biggest issue to the
Fishing News in the summer of 1945 - besides the war - was the
inability of the community to control its young people. There
was a significant amount of vandalism being caused in addition
to several small fires being set. Police suspected minors in
each case.

Worst of all, the Fishing News
concluded, was a complete disregard of community curfew laws.

"Thirty Seven children
of minor age, under 18, who were strolling about the streets
of Ketchikan in groups, pairs and foursomes between midnight
Saturday and 3 a.m Sunday were given a severe warning by the
Ketchikan Police Department," the Fishing News reported
under the banner headline "MINORS ROAM STREETS."

This story was followed by
two editorials extolling the virtues of hard work, parental supervision
and obeying curfews.

But on August 6, the war was
back at center stage.

"US has a new Atomic Bomb,"
announced the Fishing News.

"Japan city flattened
by new weapon" echoed the Chronicle.

After the second atomic bomb
was dropped on Aug. 9, the local papers speculated with the rest
of the country on how much longer Japan would hold out. After
several days both newspaper trumpeted "War is Over."

"Church bells rang out,
car horns blared, flags went up as Ketchikan received the momentous
news of peace this afternoon," The Chronicle reported on
August 14. "Shop owners left their places of business and
ran into the streetswithin a half an hour of the official report,
Ketchikan bars and many other businesses closed downlast minute
liquor store patron were being turned down as well as dozens
who made a rush for the cocktail lounges when the news was announced."

Mayor R.C. Pedersen proclaimed
a day of prayers and thanksgiving.

"Let our conduct in the
excitement and elation of victory be tempered by discretion so
that we may merit the degree of honor that we have enjoyed in
our efforts to make victory possible," he proclaimed, according
the Chronicle.

Juneau, on the other hand,
celebrated a little differently, also according to the Chronicle.

"Liquor stores began opening
at 6 am," the paper reported. "In the lobby of the
Baranof, G.I's, Ratings and Officers staged a 'free drinks for
everybody' party that had 100 participants by 8 amG.I.'s roamed
the downtown streets and stopped late sleepers after 6 am with
their announcements that "the war is over, get up and celebrate."

Dave Kiffer is a freelance
writer living in Ketchikan, Alaska.
Contact Dave at dave@sitnews.us